FAITH MATTERS: No pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio's crimes

Wednesday

Sep 6, 2017 at 12:01 AMSep 6, 2017 at 10:37 AM

Rev. Daniel Payne

As Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas on Aug. 25, President Trump decided it was the perfect time to pardon another destructive force: Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the controversial former sheriff of Maricopa Country, Arizona.

Unlike almost all previous presidential pardons, Trump made his decision without the traditional recommendation of the Department of Justice, and he did so unusually early in his presidential term. The timing is suspicious, forcing one to wonder if the president was hoping Harvey might soften the reaction of those opposed to the pardon of such a contentious individual. However, for Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton:

“Pardoning Joe Arpaio is a slap in the face to the people of Maricopa County. Sheriff Joe Arpaio targeted and terrorized Latino families because of the color of their skin. He was ordered by a federal judge to stop and he refused. He received a fair trial and a justifiable conviction, and there's nothing the President can do to change that awful legacy and the stain he had left on our community.”

In the wake of backlash against the pardon by both conservatives and liberals, a few die-hard Trump supporters played the “but Obama” game, focusing mainly on Obama’s pardon of the provocative Wikileaks informant, Chelsea Manning. It is true, President Obama – and nearly every other American president – has made use of the presidential pardoning power enumerated in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Some of those past pardons have been controversial (though most of Obama’s pardons were reserved for nonviolent drug criminals), but this use of the logical fallacy of relevance, or “two wrongs make a right” argument, does nothing to legitimize Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Arpaio. Pardons past and present can be criticized, but the pardons other presidents have given are irrelevant to condemnation of the pardon of Arpaio.

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 24:22

Arpaio was the elected sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona, from 1993 to 2016. During his tenure, Arpaio made a reputation for himself as an anti-illegal immigrant warrior and architect of armed citizen posses. Publicly, he garnered a name for himself for racial profiling, often rounding up large groups of Hispanic people – including children – for no cause other than their ethnicity. A federal court dispensed an injunction barring Arpaiofrom conducting these “immigration roundups,” but he continued to do so anyway, resulting in a conviction for criminal contempt. Less well-known, perhaps, are his other abuses of power including covering up cases of sexual abuse and participating in the misuse of funds.

Arpaio erected a so-called “Tent City” to house some convicted prisoners outside his Maricopa County jail, jokingly referring to it as a “concentration camp.” Temperatures in the camp often surpassed 120 degrees during the summer. After an investigation, Amnesty International determined that the concentration camp-like facility was not an "adequate or humane alternative to housing inmates in suitable jail facilities."

Arpaio is an adherent of a national movement called the Constitutional Sheriff Movement. The manifesto for this movement is Richard Mack’s "Constitutional Sheriff: America’s Last Hope," which Arpaio has encouraged all police officers and sheriffs to read. According to this manifesto, American police officers and sheriffs are encouraged to save America from “a growing Marxist creed and political whining for universal health care, gun control, forced equality through governmental redistribution of wealth, and the removal of religious beliefs and expressions from our public institutions.” The manifesto continues by warning that “the greatest threat we face, as a nation is our own Federal Government.”

Combined with Arpaio’s racist policies and tendency towards conspiracy theories (he was instrumental in the birther movement surrounding Barack Obama’s birth certificate), his belief that sheriffs hold a power greater than that of the federal government should at least be concerning to most Americans. If power imbalance between federal governance and local governance is Arpaio’s primary concern, how does “posse justice” solve that problem? And it seems ironic, at best, to claim concern for individual freedoms while developing a reputation of targeting an entire ethnicity for suspicion of breaking the law. It seems Arpaio is less concerned about personal freedom and more concerned with garnering personal power and instituting ultra-nationalist, racist policies.

The pardon of Arpaio is not settled yet, though. According to the Arizona Republic, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton “ordered Arpaio and the U.S. Department of Justice, which is prosecuting the case, to file briefs on why she should or shouldn’t grant Arpaio’s request.” In other words, Arpaio’s pardon hasn’t been stamped for approval just yet. It appears that presidential pardons might not be quite as absolute as most people suspect.

Then, of course, there’s the religious argument against Arpaio’s beliefs and methods, not that one needs a religious reason to oppose racial profiling and prisoner abuse. Two biblical passages will suffice to show how the truly religious feel about immigrants and refugees:

“When the alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 24:22)

“Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner.” (Jeremiah 22:3)

The Rev. Daniel Payne is an ordained minister with the Progressive Christian Alliance and director of religious education and community outreach at Harvard Unitarian Universalist Church in Harvard, Massachusetts. He is the author of “From Faith to Freedom: A Gay Man’s Escape From Christian Fundamentalism,” which will be published in the fall of 2017 by Apocryphile Press.. He may be reached at syndicatedcolumn@gmail.com.

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